After Ave finished venting, she pulled herself back together and returned to looking like the princess that she was. Blushing a bit and feeling embarrassed for letting her emotions run wild, she let go of Shango’s hand and walked back to where Rolla was.

When Ave was back to normal, Shango turned away and walked towards the large doors while yelling his temporary goodbyes to them both.

“Okay, I will see you two when I get out.”

“Wai...” Just as Ave was about to say something, Rolla gave her a little nudge, and brought her index finger to her lips. Getting the hint, Ave let out a small laugh.

As he stood in front of the large doors, he felt jittery. The butterflies in his stomach would not settle. Calming himself down, he placed both his hands on the doors and tried to force them open. It only took him a moment to realize there was no way a single person could open these doors.

Turning around with an awkward smile, he said, “Um, can I get a little help with these doors?” He felt embarrassed, but he had no choice but to ask them for help. It was a major hit to his pride.

Seeing the look on Shango’s face brightened both of their moods. As if she had been expecting for Shango to ask for help, Rolla had already started making her way towards the doors. As she passed Shango, she gave him a wink before placing a single hand in the center of the doors and with little effort, forced both doors wide open with a push.

Not even being shocked by her display of strength, Shango quickly made his way in, wondering why she didn’t just open the doors for him in the first place.

After walking through the massive stone doors, he felt like he had stepped into another dimension. Taking a peek behind him, the area just beyond the door path was bright and luminous; he could barely make out the figures of Ave and Rolla. It was a bizarre occurrence. On the other side of the doorway was darkness. The only light seemed to come from the doorway’s entrance, but it was consumed by darkness before it could make it more than 2 feet from the door. As he was about to turn around and walk back out, the doors immediately snapped shut with a loud deafening bang. It was so unexpected it caught Shango entirely off guard, causing him to jump back in surprise. After he realized it was only the doors closing, he calmed down a little.

My heart damn near jumped straight out of my chest, he thought to himself.

“Those two really could have warned me about the door,” he said to himself.

With the doors shut, it had become incredibly hard to see. After a minute, his eyes adjusted to the darkness well enough to the point where he was able to see about half a foot ahead of him.

Getting used to the darkness, he waited for several minutes for the elder Ave and Rolla were so worried about to make his appearance. After waiting another ten minutes, the elder had still not shown up, so he explored the room as much as he can.

As he made his way through the room bumping into gods know what, he kept calling for the elder and hoping for an answer.

“Hello…hello. Is anyone there?”

After about two minutes of rummaging around in the darkness. A sudden sensation rushed all over him. It was as if his very being was being analyzed down to its smallest molecule. During the whole process, he could feel an icy cold like pressure shifting from his head down to the bottom of his feet and back again. Shango could sense an impending doom looming over him if he dare tried to resist. Minutes passed before he started to feel a tingling sensation all over his body, then without warning, a stinging pain struck every inch of his body. It reminded him of that time Yuki and him were kids and she accidentally pushed him into an ant pile.

After a while, it became nearly impossible for him to think straight. He had difficulty even telling himself to breathe. Not being able to bear the pain anymore, Shango started yelling out a string of profanities.

“Fuck! What the hell is this, why the fuck is this so fucking painful!”

“Old bastard, where the fuck are you?”

“Is this your doing, you bitch!”

Shango had felt pain before, but this pain was just unreal. He could not see anything, but he could sense that something was staring at him—no, he had a feeling that more than one person was watching him like he was a caged animal at the zoo.

That feeling reminded Shango of stories about people who had been kidnapped by little gray men and poked and prodded.

Shango could no longer stand the pain anymore. He didn’t know what kind of test they were doing, but they could have at least greeted him first.

“Dammit, who’s there? Show yourself!” Shango said as he gritted his teeth. He had long since dropped to knees, trying to use all of his willpower to keep himself from going insane.

The suffocating feeling he felt grew more and more intense and just when he was about to lose consciousness, Shango heard an old feeble sounding voice echo into his ear.

“So you’re the hero summoned this time around, a rather unique looking one at that.”

“Old freak, what the hell are you doing to me?”

“Hmm, such resilience. I wonder how much you can endure?” Shango felt the man increase his effect on him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” This old bastard is more than just a little irregular, Shango thought to his self before yelling out at the elder. “Ever since I entered this damn room, all you’ve done is fuck with me. What the hell is wrong with you?” The pain became even more unbearable.

“Well, you sure are a tough one. Let us move on.” The elder pointed at him and uttered a string of words that Shango had never heard before, and as if it had never happened, the feeling Shango had before disappeared and a refreshing warm feeling engulfed him in its place.

The elder than waved his hand, causing the pitch-black room to light up completely. It was like this man was God who created the light on the fourth day.

Looking up at the smiling elder, Shango felt helpless. But before he could voice his grievances, he heard the elder say something that genuinely pissed him off.

“Now then, let’s move on to the real test.”

Shango felt his mind go numb.

“Real test? The real test?” The words that left the old man’s mouth did not make sense to Shango anymore.

“Yep, the real test. Now, quickly get up and follow me.”

It took a while for him to understand the meaning of those words thoroughly, but when he did, he was furious.

Slowly rising to his feet, he just stood there for a second. He vaguely remembered a promise he just recently made.

“Fuck it.” He rushed at the old man, throwing a heavy right hook. Everything about the punch was perfect. He felt that it would send an elite fighter to dreamland. Charging towards him, Shango saw the elder smile before his fist made contact with his face.

“Good strike!” Shango heard the old man in a muffled voice say.

Pulling his fist back, he felt a bit of wetness on the tip of his knuckles. The realization that the old man had used his tongue to stop his fist shocked him. Shango had heard girls say his tongue game was strong, but this was a bit ridiculous.

Ever since Shango had come to this world, he felt like he had become a lot stronger. Even back in his old world, he could be called somewhat of a perfect physical specimen . Shango thought that if he could catch the old geezer off guard, he could at least get one good hit on him to release some of his pent-up stress.

Looking at his fist, once again, he was reminded just how weak he was.

“That was a good blow, especially for someone who has yet to be properly trained, but…” The smile on the elder’s face grew wider.

A moment later, he saw the old geezer rolling up his sleeve, revealing an arm that could put anybody boulder to shame.

“If you’re going to throw a punch, do it like this.” In a straight-up position, only using the power within his arm, he threw a punch. A massive force shot past Shango with enough power that it threw him to the side.

Turning his head around, he saw a huge dent in the wall but as he looked closer, he noticed that the wall began to repair itself.

Turning back around and looking at the old man who was rolling his sleeves back down, only one thought crossed his mind.

What the fuck is wrong with me, did I lose my fucking mind when I came to this world? Even Shango would admit he could be a bit hot-headed at times, but he was not some hot-blooded youth from a Chinese novel.

Clearing up his head some, he reminded his self to keep calm. Even though he still had some resentment toward this fellow, now was not the right time to act.

Looking at the old man who was still standing there smiling, he felt the sudden urge to throw another punch, but he knew it was pointless. Still pissed, Shango gritted his teeth and asked, “Could you just telling me my element already.”

“Sure, sure. Let’s get started, follow me.”

Looking at the old geezer’s back, he thought about launching a sneak attack, but he felt something terrible would happen to him if he tried that. Having no choice, he picked himself up and followed behind the old man.

“Hmm. The first thing we should test is probably your current mana level. Usually, we would have someone from the Valentine Family here to give us a proper reading, but right now, we are in a bit of a dispute with them.” He said before lowering his voice, “Stingy fellows, it’s only a damn head.”

Shango had no real desire to listen to the elder, so he just let his thoughts drift back and forth, only tuning in to listen to the essential parts.

“Good thing I got this,” the elder said as he took out his grimoire, flipped some pages, and summoned a sphere-shaped object.

“We recovered this tool from the little people; it gives a rough estimate of your mana level. Those guys always make good stuff,” he said as he stroked the sphere.

Little people? He must be talking about the dwarves. Ave and Rolla had taught him much about the different races of this world. Dwarves held the technological advantage over the other races. They created all the ancient artifacts. Even the elite weapons that were used by the humans were recovered from the dwarves.

“Alright, place both your hands of the sphere and focus. You should feel a source of power run through you. Don’t resist. Since you have never used mana before, this tool will try to pull out your mana and then measure it forcefully.”

Placing both his hand on the sphere, Shango felt something run through his body immediately. It was similar to what happened to him earlier, but this was a somewhat soothing feeling. The longer he held the sphere, the brighter it got and better the feeling felt. Even the old man’s eye grew larger as he looked at the sphere.

“That’s enough of that. If this goes on any longer, the sphere will shatter. Even for a summoned hero, your mana level is unbelievably high.” The elder called the sphere back into his grimoire.

“It would have been cool if it broke.”

“No, it would not have been.” The elder said with a frown.

“It would have been more than cool. Going to a new world and breaking the tool that measures power like the protagonist in a novel? Now that is a man’s romance at its finest,” Shango said with the biggest grin.